Natsume Yuujinchou episode 9

We start off this episode on a funny note, where we see Nyanko attached to a leash and scaring away a dog. It turns out Natsume was bringing him out for a walk because he was getting too fat. Through this incident they met some guy with a “tattoo” on his neck of a lizard. His name is Shuichi Natory and he is a famous actor, but of course Natsume who is the television deprived kid would never know that. It was a short encounter and Natsume was soon on his way back to his home when he came across a spirit with a rope attached to them, he wanted to call out to it, but that gave him a little flashback to why he shouldn’t. Whenever he was younger and he would call out to a spirit, naturally anyone around him would think he was completely insane, in this case he had kids calling him a liar and teachers that told him “not to say sick jokes”. He woke up randomly in his bed because it somehow became night time during the time he spent with that flashback and he finds a note from Nyanko saying he went out to get a drink; how cute is it that Nyanko actually writes little notes. Though, the problem about Nyanko leaving is that it leaves Natsume open to get eaten by any spirits and as he opened his, a giant piece of paper was trying to attack him. This scene reminded me so much of Spirited Away when you saw all the little papers that had basically the same structure of the one in this episode attack Haku, except they were a lot smaller than this larger than life one. Anyway, Natsume ran away like there was no tomorrow; who would have thought that paper could be so violent! The positive is that evil paper or not, it’s easy to tear. After that, he saw the famous guy again and it turns out that he can see spirits as well.

He says they are comrades, but the conversation doesn’t go much further than that. The next day at school, Ntasume sees his friend Tanuma, who can sort of see spirits and it made me realize that he really looks hot! Especially his hair, which looked better than I last remember. Anyway, Tanuma points out that there seems to be a guy waiting for Natsume outside whom is none other than Shuichi; the famous guy. He still wants to ask a favour of Natsume, so he asks to go to some restaurant with him. On the way there, famous guy shows off to his fangirls, which is pretty funny because he has such an ego. He tells Ntasume how he is an exorcist and he would like Natsume’s help to get the job done. Natsume reply was obviously no because he doesn’t like to get rid of a spirit like that and he wouldn’t really want to have to hang out with that guy anyway. The supposed “tattoo” on Shuichi’s neck, turns out to be a spirit and it moves around his body at will, which looks pretty awesome! As a child, when he realized it was a spirit, he tried to learn how to get rid of it, but he never was able to find out how. Nyanko appears out of nowhere at the table the both were dining at, how a fat cat got up to that table without anyone noticing is still a mystery to me. It was very comedic when you see the little versus battle screen among Nyanko and Shuichi’s spirit that follows him everywhere. All though, it got me wondering, Nyanko is a cat, but he is technically a spirit, yet everyone is still able to see him. Though, Natsume did find Nyanko in the first place in the form of a cat, so maybe there is actually a story behind that all?

Shuichi has two spirits that work for him, which evidently cannot be seeing by anyone else. Shuichi started explaining the job that has to get done for the exorcism and during that time, Natsume hears a voice in the far off distance that was asking for the Book of Friends. Being the nice guy Natsume is, he didn’t want to get Shuichi involved with the demon who was going to come, but that failed miserable because the ugly spirit did come while everyone was still on the scene, except Shuichi just took a stick and stuck it right in the forehead. Obviously, Natsume was upset because the spirit got severely injured, which upset me too. Shuichi just lost a lot of points for being someone who doesn’t care to injure spirits.After Natsume refused once again the offer to help in the exorcism he went home and found the spirit attached to the rope once more. She says it was an exorcists that put the rope on her and also she claims to have known Shuichi as a child a very long time ago and she was sad to know that he came back as an exorcist. Not to mention, he was going to do an exorcism on that very spirit the next day.

Natsume obviously feels bad and decides to go where Shuichi is peforming the exorcism so that he can stop it because Shuichi doesn’t even know who the spirit he is going to get rid of is. Though, Natsume gets stopped by one of the spirits that follow Shuichi around everywhere, but Natsume manages to break free anyway. Natsume jumps into the circle that was created to repel the spirit (aka: major danger zone) and right before he gets blown to nothingness along with the other spirit, Nyanko saves him. Shuichi then remembers who the spirit actually is and by some miraculous turn of events everyone ends up living (or whichever standard to still being in there same state for a spirit) and Shuichi lets the spirit work with him. The story basically ends there, I know I made it sound extremely boring, but it wasn’t as bad as it probably sounds. Though, I did find that this episode wasn’t as good as some of the others. There isn’t anything in specific to say to why i disliked it, but I think it was just a case of having my expectations to high. After the preview form the last episode, I was expecting something absolutely hilarious, but it turns out that there was only one or two jokes, which obviously disappointed me. The story wasn’t even that great or at least not as good as some in the past. Not to mention nothing was resolved about that lizard spirit like perhaps it’s origin or something like that, which also left me a bit upset. We didn’t even get much of a closure, which is why I’m starting to believe that we might be seeing his character more than once. Shuichi wasn’t that great of a character to begin with though, besides being extremely self-centered, he was also mean to the spirits, which as I mentioned, upset me a lot. In the next episode, it just seems like some spirit is going to be asking Natsume if he can lend him his body, which Natsume is evidently against doing, but I guess we’ll see!

This was a really fun episode but I didn’t find it quite as heart-tugging as some of the others (#8 for instance was fantastic). It was still interesting to see how different people cope with the ability to see spirits though – maybe Natsume will end up as an exorcist who takes a more forceful and less sympathetic approach, but I doubt it somehow. It does make me intrigued as to what experiences Natori had that made him dislike youkai so much – I hope we see him show up in future episodes too.

Actually I’m hoping for a second season someday because I could easily watch more than thirteen when they’re as good as these have been!

@concretebadger: I’m starting to realize that for the most part, I enjoy the episodes with a more romantic story behind it, which is probably why I didn’t like this one as much. You mention a lot of interesting points that makes this epsiode intriguing.
I’m hoping for a second season as well, I think that this series has a lot they can explore with and 13 episodes just can’t show all those ideas.